Hartley Rathaway
Hartley Rathaway (born January 27th, 1990), also known as the Pied Piper, is the former protege of Eobard Thawne, under the disguise of Dr. Harrison Wells. Originally an enemy of team Flash, due to the events of Barry Allen's trip back in time to find out how to defeat Zoom, Hartley is now an honorary member of team Flash, assisting where needed and helping out when he's not busy running his family's company as the vice president of Rathaway Industries. Played by Hatter History Early Life Born to Rachel and Osgood Rathaway, Hartley was a child prodigy and loved his parents greatly. The boy was always well-behaved but he also had a sharp wit that he knew how to use against others, it wasn’t for a decade or two that he’d start using it fully. Growing up, his parents supported his studies and had plans for him to take over the family business which he was mostly happy to do. However, things changed as he turned 16, he had been about to start at university for engineering as he'd graduated early due to his brilliant mind. It had seemed like the perfect time to finally tell his parents the truth about him that he'd never told them, he came out to his parents as gay and he their reaction was like a nightmare to him. Hartley's parents kicked him out and cut off all ties to him, with old money came old values, but they had already paid for his university expenses prior. So, he went to university for four years and had to work for the first time in his life somewhere that he could be fired from, it was a hard time for him that caused him to grow bitter towards his parents as well as the world. The day Hartley finished university was the day things started looking up for him, it was the day that Harrison Wells offered him a job at Star Labs. There was no way for Hartley to know what would come of the job but he accepted the job offer, it was the best option for him and a chance of a lifetime. So, he began working for the famed scientist and grew to become the man's protégé, making his arrogance come into play as he was only willing to view Wells as his equal for the man had grown to be a father figure for him. It was only a few years into his time at Star Labs that things changed for the young man. The day Cisco Ramon was hired was an interesting day for Hartley, Wells saw something in the other that was what had been seen in Hartley and his jealousy kicked in. How could a boy that came to his first day at work in a Star Wars shirt be anything like him? He had no idea but he knew he had a rival from that day forward and made a bet that Cisco wouldn't last a week, to his irritation he lost that bet. However, he only dealt with Cisco for a year before things changed completely for him again. Whilst working on the Particle Accelerator, he noticed an error that could cause it to explode and harm the people of central City. As soon as he realized the danger, he confronted Harrison and told him that if his ego was too big then Hartley would admit to the error for him but Harrison couldn't allow that to happen and blackmailed him as well as fired Hartley. Once again, Hartley was betrayed by a father and left to fend for himself. Particle Accelerator Explosion The day the Particle Accelerator was turned on, he had gone to Star Labs to see it and saw Professor Stein there but when the explosion happened, Hartley was caught in the blast. When he woke afterwards, he found himself where he landed in the explosion and was in excruciating pain as his ears felt like they were bleeding from how loud the world around him was. It wasn't long after he'd woken up that paramedics were coming to check on him, he wasn't sure when they'd arrived at the scene but he had to assume that someone had called for help after the explosion. To his terror, everything the medics did caused him more pain and their efforts were useless as they brought him to the hospital, it was revealed to him there that he needed a form of hearing aids but any that they had to give him just made things worse. The hospital only kept him for a few days before they sent him home as there was nothing they could do and keeping him there wasn't helping so, upon returning home, he began work on making hearing aids that could weaken his sense of hearing enough that he could function. It was just over month after being let out of the hospital that the hearing aids were completed and these hearing aids were only capable of making the sounds around him to be at a frequency that he could handle. Once his hearing aids were done, he tried calling his parents to make sure they were alright but they returned his calls, he wasn't shocked though it still hurt. As the months passed after the accident, Hartley learned more about what happened to him and used his knowledge to his advantage. During those months, he began work on a way to use his new hearing and ability to distinguish between different frequencies, one of the ways was to make gloves that he could use to turn sound-waves into a weapon, it gradually became his goal to get back at Harrison Wells for what happened and he needed a way to achieve that. So, time went on and by the time the Flash arrived in Central City, he was prepared but how to get back at Harrison in a way that would hurt him still escaped him, considering how easily he was dumped there was no reason that Cisco wouldn't end up like him so hurting Cisco to hurt Wells was an idea scraped as soon as it popped up. However, the Flash caught his attention, he knew someone was helping the speedster and he decided to find out who. It wasn't long after his parents were being targeted by Captain Cold and Heatwave, they still refused to call him back, that I figured out where the speedster would run back to after his heroic antics. There was no surprise that the Flash was working with Star Labs and he knew exactly which employees were the ones helping him, only Harrison, Cisco, and Caitlin would do it and were the only ones left after the explosion. Getting Revenge and Learning the Truth With his knowledge of who was helping the Flash, he knew exactly which pawn would hurt the 'great Harrison Wells' the most if they were harmed. So, he began his attack, he went after his parent's building with his gloves and as expected the Flash showed himself by fighting Hartley. Just as he had planned, the speedster beat him and took him back to Star Labs though the Flash was acting rather weird and had disappeared on him during the fight. It wasn't known to him at the time but the timeline was beginning to change and the weird acting Flash was the cause of it. Once at the lab, he barely had a chance to speak before the Flash suddenly revealed Hartley's plan to Cisco, to say he was angry was an understatement. Due to his plan being revealed, when he was thrown into a cell in the pipeline, his hearing aids were taken from him and he was left to listen to "Never Gonna Give You Up" by Rick Astley, Cisco had an interesting sense of torture. Thankfully, Cisco returned not long after leaving him in the pipeline so then he could find out how the gloves worked, after listening to the song for as long as he did, he would tell him anything to make it stop. With his agreement to give up the information, the music was shut off and he almost collapsed from the pain, as soon as Cisco gave him the new hearing aids, they were put in to stop the pain. Unlucky for Cisco, Caitlin had came over the speaker system to announce that something was here and both her and Cisco came barrelling into his cell as well as locked them in. Didn't take long for Hartley to find out why they came barrelling in and he could understand why they did, the cell door wasn't exactly holding the dementor look-alike out and he had to use his gloves against the creature with some arguing from Cisco who almost broke the glass using them. After the time wraith was dealt with, Hartley was switched cells and was stuck waiting until they'd need him again which wasn't pleasant but at least he wasn't being rick roll'd by Cisco anymore. It was unknown how long it was until he was called on again and it was once again to be interrogated but this time it was about where Ronnie is and what happened to him, he tried his escape from Cisco when he was taken out of the pipeline to show him what happened and was successful in it which amused him since he knew what the Flash from the future told Cisco. However, when Harrison Wells was revealed to have murdered Barry Allen's mother, he contacted team Flash in a panic and slowly was brought into their little group but only so much as to be friendly with them as well as help with some cases that required his expertise, he was alright with that. Starting Anew During that time, he also began to slowly mend his relationship with his parents as they broke their need to ignore him after realizing that by pushing their son away, they had left him to a murderer who had everyone believing he was a great man. As his relationship mended with his parents, they slowly reintegrated him into the company and soon moved him into his father's second in command as well his successor, his mother was very adamant about it. By the time the Flash was meant to go into the future, he was happier than he'd been in years and he had come up with a way to save the day and be thanked for it rather than shunned. Whatever the world threw at him, he wasn't alone fighting through it anymore. Working With Team Flash and All The Troubles Along The Way Of course, Hartley being Hartley, his moments of helping consist of him staying up all night until he passes out from too many late nights which, during the chaos of Zoom, led to Caitlin stumbling upon him and having a small heart to heart between the pair before Hartley went back to work. Unsurprisingly, later that day, in his sleep deprived state, he proceeded to get on the bad side of Black Siren which led to him getting badly injured with shattered hearing aids and some possible broken bones but thankfully, Caitlin found him and patched him up so he can get revenge, not that he ever got the chance nor would the team ever let him since they still didn't trust him. In the meantime, tragedy stuck with the death of William, Oliver Queen's son, at the hand of Damien Darhk. Although he didn't know the boy more than the best friend of his godmother involved, Hartley was heartbroken over the event but couldn't bring himself to attend the funeral and instead focused on working in his apartment to ignore the pain of the loss until his best friend arrived. The visit led to the reveal of Mellie, his best friend, being a fellow metahuman and the duo spent the night talking as she stayed over. Later, Hartley would learn something had happened to Mellie and there was nothing he could do about it. However, the opportunity to assist in the fight came, not with Zoom outside of helping with the time wraith but when Savitar made his last appearance through Dr. Alchemy. As Jesse Quick was busy taking care of her doppelganger, who proceeded to free Wally West from his cocoon that gave him speedster abilities, she sent Hartley back into the battle in her place where he assisted the Flash before Dr. Alchemy was taken down and revealed to be Julian Albert. After that, he backed off from the team and only came in when called, considering Caitlin turned into Killer Frost, can you really blame his backing out? So, since Savitar, Hartley has been dealing with his own life and work whilst offering assistance where needed.